The origin of our bogs goes back 15,000 years or more.It happened when ice sheets melted. After the climate got better the vegetation began to grow again. Slowly forests of  birch, alder, elm, yew and oak grew.There were many damp hollows and lakes where pond mosses, sedges and water loving plants lived. In damp conditions the plants decayed. It is thought the weather became colder and damper 2,500 to 3,000 years ago. As a result deforestation began. Fens or flat waterlogged areas formed. Sphagnum moss grew in hollows and badly drained places. It kept growing in layers until the top of the bog was above the level of the surrounding land. The bog around Croghan is raised bog. Raised bogs can be up to 7 metres deep.
The bog has many types of flowers and plants, heather, myrtle, bogcotton, asphodel, milkwort,  whortleberry and lousewort are some of these.  Bog Rosemary is the County flower of Offaly and is on the Offaly crest.

LIFE ON THE BOG

Life on the bog was very hard for people in the old days. My great grandfather and people like him would earn a living by selling turf to people who needed it. They would sell it to the ESB to make electricity. They would clean off the bog and get it ready for the month of April so they could start using the slean to cut turf. They would have a person cutting with a slane on the high bank of the bog and on the low bank they would have a person catching the turf and wheeling it off with the wheelbarrow or bog bogie. They would spend about a month or two cutting the turf because it took a while. They would make bog holes and in each bog hole there would be about ten boards of turf. When they finished that and the turf was windrowed it would take about a month to dry before they could draw it home. It would take them above a week to draw it home with a donkey and cart. Now a days its much easier to work on the bog because they use machinery. They would use a digger to load the hopper with peat and it could maserate the peat. When they have that all done they spread it out in rows on the bank. When it drys they would use the turf turning machine and turn the turf . They would load it on to trailors and draw it to the clamp, and then they would draw it home.

By John Delaney and Steven Hensey